The Missing Madonna, Chapter 29 "An oversight"

She really scared me. After all this time and then she collapsed at my feet. I really thought the shock had killed her. Luckily she soon came round and I realised that it was just a faint. But she has aged. Her hair is flecked with grey and her face is deeply lined. And she is walking badly. Perhaps it is just too much for her. I had not expected her to have changed so much and I’m worried for her as well as the sheer joy of being home and seeing her again. At least Joshua got her talking and she seemed to relax and to understand that we really were home. She began to look around and take us all in.

My sisters, Becca and Salome have my other children. Salome is entertaining James pulling faces at him and making him laugh. Becca is bouncing little Salome up and down and she is chortling with pleasure. These two girls are after my own heart. They are doing just what I would have done in the same situation. When I’m reasonably sure that my mother has recovered, I turn and look hard at my sisters. Salome, I think, must look how I must have appeared when I was thirteen. I looked at her imagining myself to be the stranger trying to see in her my image as he would have seen me. She has dark eyes like me and long dark hair. She is perhaps more solemn than I ever was. She is a serious girl. On the way she told me how she looks after our mother. She smiles softly, not like Becca who bubbles with laughter just like the old days. Although Rebecca’s a sturdy girl now, coming up to womanhood, she still has the curly hair and impish grin she had as I remember her. She’s already a great hit with Salome. I can see I’ll have to be careful or my children will no longer be my own. Then Joshua wriggles free from his grandmother – it seems strange to call her that – and comes and snuggles up to my breast. It feels good.

Where do we begin to explain everything that has happened to us? It’s difficult with James and Joshua taking all our attention, then Salome begins to flag and wants me – I think she must be getting hungry. As I’m preparing to feed her, a young boy comes in and stops at the doorway, and looks in astonishment at us. It can’t be, it must be! It’s Benjamin! He stands there disbelieving, staring at us. I hardly recognise him, he’s tall and so slim now, not the chubby little fellow I remember. He hesitates and with Salome still in my arms I go over and embrace him. He still looks puzzled – I look down at Salome and murmur, “Salome, this is your Uncle Ben,” and then I say to Ben, “And this is your niece, Salome and over there are your nephews, Joshua and James.” He reels in mock horror, then a grin spreads across his face.

“You really are my sister, Mari? You’ve come back to us after all this time?” He looks across at Joseph. “I remember you. You married my sister, didn’t you?”

And so there are further explanations all round. We get to know one another again. In the late afternoon, my mother says that we’ll need more water for she has not foreseen that we would be such a crowd. My sisters volunteer to go to the well and my mother says, “Why don’t you go with them like in the old days. I’ll look after the children. I’d love to.”

“Can I come too?” Benjamin doesn’t want to be left out.

“They’ll laugh at you,” giggles Rebecca. “You’d better put on one of my shawls and come in disguise!”

“I don’t mind. The women can say what they like. I want to hear what Mari says – I know you’ll be gossiping all the way there and back and I want to hear it all.”

And so we all traipse down to the well just like we did five years ago. Nothing much seems to have changed here. The fields and the trees are so familiar, it’s as though I never left. I’m trying to recount my story and look at everything through fresh eyes but I’m distracted. Other women from the village espy me and rush over to ask so many questions. I repeat the bare bones of the last years of my life over and over again. I tell them about Joseph and Joshua and going to Egypt and they are agog. But I don’t tell them about the visitors who came to see Joshua or the reason for our flight or Herod’s cruelty. I keep that back to tell Salome and Becca and Ben when at last we are alone. After we get the water home, the four of us sit in the courtyard in the dust and I tell them everything. Joseph is with Clopas and Miriam, explaining everything to them, I expect. What a day of storytelling!

And later that night, when the children are asleep, even Salome and Rebecca, Joseph and I sit down with my mother and tell her everything. We talk long into the night and she asks so many questions. Finally, just when we think there is nothing more to say, Mother suddenly looks at the pair of us.

“When did you get married? Where was the ceremony? Could you not have come home so that we could have a proper wedding?”

Joseph and I look at one another with shock. It’s as though we had forgotten. I’d put it out of my mind. I blush beetroot red.

“Mother, we have a big confession to make. We’re not married. We’re still betrothed.”

My mother looks at me quizzically.

“Are you shocked, mother?”

“I’m surprised. I thought you’d have come home. If for some reason that was not practicable, I’d have thought you’d have been married in Jerusalem or at your aunt’s home in Ein-karem.”

“We should have come home or at least got a message to you. But at first I was so weak, I lost a lot of blood and Joseph was worried for me. I had to look after my new baby and Joseph wanted me to stay at his home while I recovered my strength again. Then we heard that travellers were being attacked on the roads north of Jerusalem, people said it was too dangerous to travel unless you were in a crowd.”

“That was my doing. Don’t blame your daughter. She pleaded with me to go home, she said that God would protect us, but everyone told me it was too dangerous even to go as far as the villages outside the city.”

“Then Joseph built up his workshop and was making a good living and wanted to save enough to live on for a few months before we could afford to leave everything and journey north.”

“But why didn’t you get married then?”

“Well, everyone assumed we were married. I had the child and we lived together. I didn’t want to have to tell everyone about the child’s conception and his destiny, it would have created so many problems for us. And we couldn’t have a proper wedding without revealing to everyone that we were not already married which would have caused a great scandal. So we put it off until we could get home. Then we heard of Herod’s interest in us and feared the worst and had to flee. You know the rest. We couldn’t risk coming back here then where we were well known. I’m so sorry, mother, that you were put to so much worry.”

“Anna, blame me and not your daughter. If she’d had her way she’d have rushed back to you. I feared she’d kill herself. And if she didn’t succumb to sickness and fever after her confinement, she’d have had us ambushed by marauding bandits. People told us that we were lucky to come through unscathed when we first went to Bethlehem, but of course we saw many people travelling to Jerusalem and surrounding villages for the census and we can’t have been attractive targets for any thieves as we obviously had so little.”

I thought a lot that night about our marriage. We were man and wife in all but name. I was sure we were in God’s eyes which is really all that mattered to me. But was my mother unhappy? Should we now go through the wedding ritual here in Nazareth? I have three children now – will admitting that we are not married be an even greater scandal and bring shame to my mother and all our family? If I have to explain to our neighbours, I shall have to tell the full story, and then everyone will focus on Joshua and he will not be able to be a normal little boy. It’s bad enough already. I’m sure some will remember the judgment in the synagogue and look curiously at him to see if they can divine his forecast destiny.

A few days later we resolved our predicament. Joseph confided to Rabbi Joel at the synagogue and he, knowing the full story, agreed to conduct a private ceremony that would be attended by my mother, brother and sisters and Clopas and his immediate family only. My mother asked if I had the special shawl she had embroidered and which poor Benjamin had ripped as we were on the point of leaving so long ago. I had to confess then that to my great sorrow, it had been stolen with our other few possessions on the outskirts of Pelusium.

“Never mind. We shall start again. I’ll make you a new one. We shall celebrate your wedding when it is ready.”